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Well I reported earlier that the options for Adobe licenses and maintenance had shrunk.  The options have shrunk still further as there is no longer going to be any updates to Adobe licensed products and, ongoing, Creative Cloud is your only long term option. Is this a good or bad thing?  Well it is a mixed bag. If you are a "Creative Professional" (yes, you know who... more...

Yahoo provides email services for Telecom's Xtra. Way back in in the old days of February Telecom admitted that email accounts had been hacked and asked 60,000 users to change their passwords.  The hackers had gained access to email users address books (at least) and had sent out spam... more...

Adobe has released a statement today that it will shortly cease to supply boxed product and such software will only be available while stocks last. This is not as worrying as it sounds as, for some time,  we have recommended licenses instead of the box product for ease of license... more...

This is just a reminder that if you want to take advantage of the $19.95 upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 you need to register at www.windowsupgradeoffer.com before 28th Feb 2013. This is a several GB download and is only valid on a qualifying PC purchased between 2nd June and 31st January.... more...

Autodesk (AutoCAD etc) has 3 purchasing strategies to get latest releases. Buy a new license each time you want a new version, have an annual maintenance plan (which is pretty good value) or pay to upgrade an existing license to a new release. With option 3 the... more...

Although we can never be truly certain about software release dates Adobe is likely to release new Creative Suites software each year with whole numbers in even years and “x.5” numbers in odd years. This may not apply to individual products such as Acrobat - their version releases are... more...

Microsoft recently held its Windows 8 and Office 2013 “Reimagine” events for customers and partners in Auckland and around the country. Some of you took time out to attend, but for those who didn’t here is a short summary Microsoft are trying to make PCs, laptops,... more...

Twice in June Amazon's Data Centre in North Virginia was knocked out of action. The first outage was on 15th June and caused by a generator fan failure and the second time was over this weekend due to local weather knocking out the power supply. This took out Netflix, Pinterest, Instagram and... more...

Run up to Windows 8 time and as usual Microsoft is keen not to stop sales of current machines with boring old Windows 7 while users wait with bated breath for the new Operating System release. So they are offering an upgrade to Windows 8 on release for $19.99 for any Windows 7 PC purchased... more...

Spotify is releasing its streaming music service in New Zealand. A Free option provides streaming ad-supported music PCs and smart phones, the $7.49 a month Spotify Unlimited gives streaming ad-free access on computers only and the $12.99 Premium gives ad-free access on mobiles, and also allows... more...

From May 16th the United States Postal Service (USPS) will no longer ship any item with a Lithium Ion battery due to the danger of in flight explosions on cargo planes. Australian post has had a... more...

Yet another Copyright battle, and boy are we sick of the Testosterone fuelled fights by major manufacturers as this just makes our new toys cost more. However this one is different. The... more...

Microsoft has hinted at the Software Assurance benefits for the Windows 8 platform. If you have a 2 or 3 year renewable Software Assurance agreement on top of an existing Windows Pro license you... more...

Vista Business and Office 2007 retire today – 10th April. What does this mean for you? Security patches will be supplied for another 5 years but no more product development or... more...

In a recent Computerworld article the progress of the much anticipated Cloud Code is revealed and discussed. I grant you this is still a work in progress, but I feel the working group is making... more...

In a previous post I discussed old Operating Systems no longer being supported. There is also the problem of vital applications that will no longer work. In particular most commercial anti-virus... more...

Microsoft ceases to provide support for its old Operating Systems after (a reasonably lengthy) period of time. There are still a lot of old systems out there that are well out of support, but... more...

It was interesting to be at the HP server and storage briefing late last week as the PSG and IPG merger had only been announced 6 hours prior. Even though the storage division is not affected there... more...

Congratulations to Westcon Group’s New Zealand office for being awarded the EMC “ANZ Distributor of the Year Award” at the EMC BizConnect event in Sydney on March 14th. EMC... more...

In a reversal from its previous position in 2008 when Vodafone attempted to introduce SIM locking on mobile handsets, the Commerce Commissioner in a letter dated 24th February has declined to act... more...